


Quantum Jump

by smarmsi



Series: Voltron!!! On Ice [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender, Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Artistic Liberties, Crossover, Grand Prix Final Banquet, Ice Skating, M/M, Pining, and lance is in denial, keith is emotionally constipated, rivals-to-lovers, they skate their feelings at each other, they're old enough to be in seniors division and also legally get drunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 09:48:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11643996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smarmsi/pseuds/smarmsi
Summary: noun: 1. A huge, often sudden, increase or change in something.A video of Lance McClain skating Keith Kogane's FS program goes viral, ten months after the best night of Keith's life.





	Quantum Jump

**Author's Note:**

> a) "time to study" = "time to procrastinate by writing fic".  
> b) Accurate timelines? I don't know her  
> c) will i ever finish the fics i've started instead of writing new ones? sources say no
> 
> -  
> want to scream at me about Voltron? my tumblr is [here](http://smarmsi.tumblr.com/)!

“Have you seen?”

Keith toes his sneakers off and nudges them to sit primly next to Shiro’s snow boots before glancing up at him. “Seen what?”

Shiro turns away and heads back into the kitchen, fiddling with the knotted strings of the green apron looped around his waist. “It’s up on my phone,” he tosses over his shoulder.

Keith slides the strap of his bag over his head and lets it thump to the floor before following. Shiro’s phone rests next to a bowl of julienned carrots, dangerously close to a puddle of water. He scoops it up, making sure to wipe the back off on his shirt, and settles onto the singular, uneven bar-stool they have in their apartment. It creaks in protest and tips forward. His knees spread wide to get his feet up on the rungs without banging against the wall of the counter.

“What is it?” Keith asks, thumbing the home button. Their mother and father smile up at him from the screen before he clicks once more to unlock.

Oh. It’s a video, flipped to full-screen.

“Just watch, okay?” Shiro turns to look at him, and Keith isn’t sure how to read the expression he’s making. “And don’t…” Keith waits for him to finish, but Shiro just hums and turns back to the fish that he’s pan-frying. Steam rises and gets sucked into the vent above the stove that’s droning loud.

Keith’s fingers tap replay as he squints warily at Shiro’s back—only for his gaze to be drawn curiously down as the sound of skates against ice streams from the speakers. He doesn’t know what he expects to see—himself? One of Shiro’s old programs?—but it’s not this.

Not _Lance fucking McClain_.

Keith sucks in a breath, and it’s like he’s suddenly been dunked in ice water—emotions well up inside him, too large and too swift to name, and he doesn’t know what to think; he nearly turns it off. Why did Shiro want him to watch this—but Lance starts to move, and—

That’s his fucking free skate.

There’s no music. There’s no audience. It’s just Lance and the ice and the harsh lights of the rink he’s at—but Keith knows that choreography, and he knows the music he picked to go with it, and Lance is _skating it_ , and skating it _well_ —looking nothing like the skater who bombed the GPF ten months ago.

Keith can’t quite breathe. Lance skates like he’s barely in control of his movements, like he’s a hurricane about to hit land, and it’s so _different_ from the flowing grace that usually marks his style. He does a quad loop and lands viciously. Keith’s pulse races.

It doesn’t matter that there’s no music. The only song necessary is the one rolling off of Lance’s shoulders and down the back of his tight blue shirt, dripping off his fingers and gathering in the hollows of his knees. Keith knows what this routine requires, knows how difficult it is and how much it will take from you if you let it—but Lance skates like he was _born_ to skate it, _made_ for the pain and heartbreak of it.

The step sequence is gorgeous in a way that slams Keith’s heart against his ribs and flips his stomach upside down. Some of Lance’s natural grace comes out as he goes through it, but the chaos he seems to be deliberately letting loose gives it an edge that Keith has never seen in his programs.

Watching Lance skate, it’s—it’s—

Life-changing.

Lance goes into the last spin, tight and reckless and Keith can’t tear his eyes away even as the boy strikes the ending pose and someone starts to clap off-screen. The video ends and the title pops up—

 _Lance McClain Skates Keith Kogane’s FS Program [Stay Close To Me]_.

Keith doesn’t move for a good sixty seconds, unable to process what just happened.

Lance—

That—

Lance just—

The clink of metal tongs against the countertop. Shiro is looking at him and yeah, _now_ Keith knows how to interpret the look he’s being given. The screen goes dark and Keith resists the urge to turn it back on and stare a little more.

“What…” he starts, but has no words to finish the sentence.

“Someone tagged me on Twitter. Your fans know you don’t check social media much.” Shiro pulls a knife from the block and starts chopping a radish. He has to raise his voice to speak over the rhythmic sound. “It’s gone viral, but Lance hasn’t made any statement about it yet.” Somehow Keith finds it in himself to have an actual, conscious thought:

Lance skated his routine.

All the emotions that have been whirling around in his chest cavity since he clicked play on the video—no, since he’d started thinking about retiring—no, since the damned banquet—finally settle, sinking low in his torso; the thought sinks with them and comes to rest somewhere beneath his appendix.

Keith’s throat clicks when he swallows. “No statement?” Shiro’s gaze cuts like the knife paused mid-slice. Keith tries to control his expression and knows he doesn’t do a good job of it.

“It’s been almost a year, Keith,” his voice is gentle and Keith _hates_ it, “You shouldn’t—”

“I _know_ ,” Keith interrupts. It’s the same thing Shiro’s been saying all year. You shouldn’t get your hopes up. Shouldn’t be so affected. Shouldn’t let him hurt you like this. Shouldn’t have let him touch you like he did. Shouldn’t have fallen like you did. Shouldn’t, shouldn’t, _shouldn’t_.

Keith’s never been very good at doing what he’s told.

He slides off the stool and grabs his bag from where it’s still slumped near the door before heading to his bedroom. The muffled sound of Shiro’s knife against the wooden board soothes his agitated state, and he relaxes enough to unpack his bag before flopping on his bed and burying his head into his pillow, nose filling with the usual scent of his shampoo and a whiff of something not pleasant. He should wash his sheets, probably, but—

 _Lance_ skated _his_ routine.

Keith tries to stop it, he really does; still, something delicate and sweet to the taste starts unfolding itself from where he’d shoved it ten months ago and he can’t bring himself to push it away again. He shifts on the bed, turning to his bedside table where his phone rests, slim and unassuming. No notifications. Rarely ever notifications, because he’d turned them all off when he’d bought it and made sure it was on silent all the time. No acknowledgement of the video.

He gnaws at his lower lip.

Fuck it. He lunges.

It would be laughable how easy it is to find if he weren’t a little terrified. He looks on YouTube because even just the thought of opening Twitter leaves a bad taste in his mouth. The search bar auto-fills for him when he starts to type _Lance skates Keith’s._

The first hit, what looks like the original video, is posted by an account called PidgeonBaby3 and has nearly a million views already. Keith looks at the video, then at his open door, considering. Metal scraping against metal filters in from the kitchen.

He gets up to find his earbuds.

They’re buried at the bottom of his bag, where he’d tossed them this morning, and tangled as always. He forgoes untangling them and just sticks the left one in his ear after plugging them in and getting back onto his bed.

Keith loses count of how many times he watches the video.

It starts with Lance standing in the middle of the rink, dressed in tight black sweatpants, a deep blue shirt that cuts low on his chest, and the standard black practice gloves of a skater. He’s talking to someone off to the side—or arguing, since his shoulders look tense and his hands are fists—but his words are indiscernible. The camera shakes like the person holding it almost dropped it, filling Keith’s ears with harsh static and mumbled curses. By the time it stabilizes again, Lance has started.

Each time, Keith finds his breath coming just a little short, caught up in Lance’s spins and sweeping arms, chaotic and wild. As he watches it for the nth time, he realizes he’s skating the program in his head alongside Lance.

And it’s different. Lance skates it differently.

He’d _known_ , of course. He’d known as soon as he watched it that first time and seen who was skating that it would be different. That doesn’t take away from the fact that Lance has taken what Keith considered his Last Great Feat and made it his own, made it _new_ , in front of Keith’s very eyes.

It makes him wonder if Lance feels a little lost, too—if maybe...

The rap of Shiro’s knuckles on the doorframe rip his attention from the screen. He drops his phone on his chest and rips his earbuds out. Shiro’s lip twitches.

“Food’s ready,” is all he says. The long look he throws Keith before he leaves says more.

Keith groans and throws his arms out. They barely bounce on the thin mattress. He sits up to drag his socks off his feet, wrinkling his nose at the smell. One sock makes it into the hamper across the room; the other falls short and Keith rolls his eyes.

His gaze catches on the notebook that rests on his desk, black cover scuffed and bent from years of use. It hasn’t been opened in almost three months. Keith stands and steps closer, letting his fingers brush over the abused spine. The soft leather greets him as an old friend, familiar and forgiving.

His teeth catch his inner lip, worrying at the flesh. There’s an idea for something there, slumbering beneath his skin, one that’s been there since tan fingers gripped his own and curled lips pressed against his ear; now it’s starting to flutter, moved by tight spins and a fiery scowl—but it’s not ready yet. Keith turns, leaving the notebook full of past programs, both those he’s performed and those he’s barely given a thought to, on his desk.

Shiro is setting the last of the dishes down, so Keith washes his hands before seating himself, being careful to not hit his knees on the table on his way down. His cushion is worn and lumpy and he has to adjust a bit to get comfortable.

“Thank you for the meal,” he says. Shiro nods. And really, Keith _is_ grateful—when they were both competing, mealtime usually meant whatever semi-healthy items the nearest convenience store had in stock, with a few splurges on the weekends.

Keith’s not certain his skating has gotten any better after Shiro retired, but his forehead _has_ stopped breaking out.

As is their custom, eating comes first, conversation second. The silence is only broken by the clink of ceramic and the crunch of vegetables between teeth. After he’s finished his first bowl of rice, Keith clears his throat, getting Shiro’s attention.

“I want to continue skating.” Shiro frowns and sets his bowl down. The extra few seconds he takes to align his chopsticks properly along the edge tell Keith they’re about to have a Serious Conversation. He sets his bowl down as well.

“You were set on retiring after this season.”

“I was.” A pause. Keith fiddles with the small bowls in the center of the table. “I…I’m tired, Shiro. You know that. Skating used to be…amazing. And it still is, but,” Keith swallows harsh around the lump in his throat, “I—I’m not—I couldn’t keep _doing_ it. Especially after…” Shiro’s eyes droop like they’re carrying hundred-pound weights and Keith high-tails it from _that_ topic.

“But…it’s not like that anymore.” There’s so much more than what he’s saying, but he’s never been one for words and so he lets those six say everything he means, and hopes Shiro knows him well enough to read between the lines.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Shiro finally sighs, his lips twisting reluctantly.

Keith can’t say he does. He shrugs and picks up his bowl once more. “I guess we’ll find out.” Shiro rolls his eyes and the tension between them finally breaks.

After dinner, Keith watches the video again. And again. And again. _One last time_ , he tells himself. And then it’s midnight and he’s still mesmerized by the way Lance shifts his weight to take off on his jumps, the way his fingers curl like he’s beckoning someone, the way he makes Keith’s program softer and angrier and _better_.

Keith finally turns off his phone at one in the morning, but he lies awake in bed much longer; his mind won’t stop thinking, planning, hoping—hoping Lance knew exactly what he was doing when he skated that, hoping Lance _remembers_.

Hoping maybe he isn’t so alone, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated :)


End file.
